Nigeria: Time to have a GOC ”Gandun Daji”-Bala Ibrahim

To all observers, and people with good taste of judgement, Nigeria is undoubtedly in a state of confusion, because of the continuous uncertainty about what is happening, or what is likely to happen next. In a multifaceted manner, the country is constantly challenged by calamities, causing deep distress and misery, to a people that seems sentenced by destiny, to the doorstep of misfortune.

Yes, either by preference or predestination, Nigerians continue to find themselves on the path of misadventures, that come with unfortunate consequences. Yet, on face value, when it comes to divine trust, Nigerians are superb in seeking solace under the spiritual powers of God, whose protective providence they always slant upon as a source of comfort.

Sometimes towards the end of last year, a regionally celebrated Human Right activist, that is popularly known as Sunday Igboho, announced the secession plan of the Yoruba people from Nigeria, and the need for the establishment of a new country that would be referred to as the Oduduwa Republic.

Sunday Igboho did not make the announcement under the cover of a bunker, no, he made it at a stakeholders’ meeting, that had the attendance of prominent leaders of the Yoruba race in the Southwest region. More than six months since, ignoble Igboho is moving about with the impunity of “immunity”.

Over the weekend, another unrepentant militant, Asari Dokubo, also announced himself as the leader of the new Biafra Customary Government. He even went ahead to give the names of some of the leaders of the new government, with one Uche Mefor, as the head of information and communications.

Dokubo did not mince words in spelling out his formal plan to withdraw from the membership of Nigeria. In short, he has put himself forward, physically and unmistakably, as a secessionist. Days after that treacherous announcement, Asari seems to be moving about with the impunity of “immunity.”

The only reaction from the government is the casual response from the minister of information, Mr. Lai Mohammed, who described the planned government as a “theatre of the absurd by a joker seeking attention’’.

Already, for more than a decade, the country is battling with the insurgency of Boko Haram in the north, where some people, claiming to be Islamic jihadists, have taken arms against the government, with the ultimate aim of establishing an “Islamic state” to operate from that part of the country.

Their aim is nothing but to create a conflict with the character and context that would cause confusion between the hitherto peaceful Muslim and Christian communities of Nigeria. The leader of the rebellion is called Abubakar Shekau.

Although unlike Sunday Igboho and Asari Dokubo, Abubakar Shekau is constantly camouflaged, the government had made many embarrassing pronouncements about degrading his capacity, or even eliminating his identity, only for him to resurface with another attack in a more mortifying manner.

For the best part of last week, through to the early part of this week, Samuel Aruwan, the Kaduna State Commissioner for Internal Security and Homeland Affairs, is easily the most featured public servant on the print and electronic media in Nigeria, where he has become sleepless, in giving updates on the activities of bandits in a state, that is serving as the nerve centre of the north.

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Ranging from the reports of the abduction of nearly 40 students from the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization in Mando, last week, to the Sunday foiled attempt by the same bandits at Government Science Secondary School, Ikara, and yet another brazen attempt by another set of bandits in the early hours of yesterday, Monday, 15/03/21, where three teachers were seized at a Primary school in Rama village of Birnin Gwari area of the state, Aruwan is almost approaching the state of helplessness in giving updates.

For God’s sake, what is the cause of this misfortune, that keeps coming to the country as a curse, or unsolicited solution to the people’s predicament? Where has the country gone wrong, or what has it done to the Almighty, to warrant the visits of such harms?

From intelligence, the bandits are operating under the cover of the thick forest that runs through the length and breadth of the region, spanning from Sambisa in the northeast, to Zamfara in the north-west, with Birnin Gwari in Kaduna state as the confluence.

The government cannot claim to be unaware of the geography of this woodland. There must be people familiar with the forests, whose knowledge can be tapped to tackle the problem.

With Nigeria’s military might and military strength, the country has the capability of deploying enough men to overwhelm the entire bushes, coupled with a border control policy that would make entry and exit of the bandits almost impossible.

I don’t know the exact number of commands the military has in Nigeria, but with the present security challenge that is bedevilling the country’s forests in particular, and the general political threats from secessionists that may eventually withdraw to the bush, it would not be out of place to call for a national political realignment discourse, and the creation of a military command appointment, under the title of GOC Gandun Daji, whose work is to flood all the forests and take control of every inch of soil therein.

Ibrahim, a media advisor writes from Abuja.